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Ambrosia Software

Basic information

Foundation

Product(s)

Ambrosia Software is a predominantly Macintoshsoftware company located in Rochester, New York. Ambrosia produces utilities and games. Its products are distributed as shareware; demo versions can be downloaded and used for up to 30 days.

Ambrosia's best-selling program is the utility Snapz Pro X,[1] although the company is better known for the production and the distribution of games. It was incorporated August 18, 1993, by its president, Andrew Welch, after graduating from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 1992.[2]

The first game produced by Ambrosia was Maelstrom, a remake of the Asteroids arcade game. Maelstrom and won a number of software awards.[3] This initial success led Ambrosia to release several more arcade-style games. These included Apeiron (a remake of Centipede), and Swoop (a remake of Galaxian).

"Crippled" shareware

One of Ambrosia's founding mantras was that shareware software should not be distributed as crippleware. The company's software was released on the honor system with only a short reminder that you had used the unregistered software for "x" amount of time, creating what is commonly called nagware. This policy has since been changed and the company today employs typical shareware piracy prevention measures. Their software products now fall under the category of crippleware. An article in the company's newsletter, the Ambrosia Times, outlines the factors that played into the policy change.[4]